Pages

Saturday, March 21, 2009

Fire, Flood and Zombies

I feel like I'm on another planet. My new neighborhood is the polar opposite of my old one and I'm very grateful. For one, this house is much more easily zombie proofed than the last one, although not as easily accessible to the ocean. Here I'm walking distance to downtown, art galleries, pubs and cafes. There is so much character here. People have painted their houses whatever colour inspires them, have porches with antique chairs, random yard sculptures made out of colourful plastic containers or driftwood and sometimes people speak loudly. One house has a public bubble blowing station for passerby.

My old neighborhood was so quiet you could hear a pin drop or in my case teenage boys doing back flips in the backyard. You were lucky if along with the eagles you would see the occasional pair of nuns walk by. It was emotionally cold and very Stepford Wives-ish. My yard was always clean with cut grass and pruned trees but the flower beds were often neglected because I'm not a hyper obsessive gardener. I seem to have missed the form stating the neighborhood prerequisite of having to keep up with the Joneses.

The sun seems to shine at my new house more.

It's a three story townhouse that has beautiful views. I have a little patio type yard which is waiting for me to plant something, a smaller more manageable kitchen, more wallspace for my paintings etc. It feels right here.

The move was exhausting and not without mishaps. When I first got here I was too tired to do anything but mill about the house and wonder what was out there beyond my curtains. The area is so new to me that I felt like maybe nothing was out there. I felt isolated and began thinking about what would happen if there was a zombie invasion. I began to plot about how to seal off the downstairs and we could live safely upstairs. I finally ended up watching Legend and getting the last woman on Earth feeling shaken off.

Then came the flood. I should have seen it coming due to the earlier foreshadowing. One of the movers kept saying what a bad idea it was to have the washer and dryer on the second floor. I agreed but I've never had a problem, so I wasn't worried. It did occur to me though, that there would be a lot of destruction if the washer did leak. Fast forward a few days and a few loads of laundry later. I woke up and walked down the hallway to a wet carpet! The washer drain pipe had worked itself out and fallen on the floor. Carpets had to be pulled up, underpadding pulled out and holes cut in the downstairs ceiling with huge floor fans running for over 24 hours. Everything I had moved in and put away had to be dragged out again.

While on the phone embarrassingly explaining the events to my mother, the stove's oven caught on fire. Right there and then my mother predicted a third disaster because apparently everything comes in threes. . . which I can't argue with too much considering I have three sons.

So to conclude, at this moment the carpets are all back together, the ceiling is fixed and looks better than before as well as a slightly odd smell that had been lingering in the downstairs bathroom sink has been eradicated.